I like the changes in patch 1.0.7

I like most of the changes in the patch note, I believe they will bring mostly positive changes.

I like that molten will be nerfed and I like that pick-up radius will be increased even if slightly.

On the downside I believe that PVP without any rewards/score will become tiresome after a short while.

Also a lot of account bound items that can be better than normal items is a mixed bag, that can lead to everyone using 1 set of gear, which already tends to happens for each class, just doesn't because of AH pricing, i.e. Mempo of Twilight/Witching Hour/Vile Wards/etc...

I also think that uber expensive items are really frustrating for non-hardcore gamers, simply because it's something that "regular" players can't attain, so this new level of jewelry is a let down, I would prefer that it would come in two forms or craft or as drop (low probability) simply because a hardcore player can just craft it but someone who can't or won't play 200 hours/month can also have it.

One bug there was not mentioned in the notes to be fixed is the inability to salvage or drop the items to craft the staff of hearding, I would personally like to see this address as it's wasted space in my stash that I can't get rid off.

The patch changes are, in fact, 'good'. But only if you operate in a binary universe; ie, they're 'good' because they're not 'bad'. But they don't really address any major problems of the game, they're just some eye candy to keep (some of) us entertained for a while longer.

One bug there was not mentioned in the notes to be fixed is the inability to salvage or drop the items to craft the staff of hearding, I would personally like to see this address as it's wasted space in my stash that I can't get rid off.

Yeah, that sucks. A quick and dirty fix is to create a new character (if you have empty slots), pick up the materials, then delete that character.

The patch changes are, in fact, 'good'. But only if you operate in a binary universe; ie, they're 'good' because they're not 'bad'. But they don't really address any major problems of the game, they're just some eye candy to keep (some of) us entertained for a while longer.

I agree with you to a degree. And I truly hope that statement didn't shock you to the point that you fell out of your chair!

Some of the MAJOR things that need to be changed are not quick-and-easy fixes. They require time, significant time. Hell, just look at itemization, the amount of brainstorming time just to come up with a viable long-term solution is probably more than 90% of the 1.0.7 changes required in total development time.

I think Blizzard is well aware that they probably should do something about itemization - they've already attempted to curb some of the INSANE item proliferation by making some desireable (yet not guaranteed) BoA items. I think they're well aware that abilities/runes/passives need yet another balancing pass because, even though the first one was great, it still only got us about 80% of the way to good parity among builds.

But, honestly, these are not really as complex of problems as fixing Reflects Damage, or making NV persist between acts. Also, we haven't seen the full patch notes to even have a point of reference to understand how much time could have been invested in this patch.

Remember that they have multiple teams. Just because 1.0.7 has dueling doesn't mean they're not working on other things. I think that ALL long-term fans of Blizzard games know that they're always working on something else. Always.

The patch changes are, in fact, 'good'. But only if you operate in a binary universe; ie, they're 'good' because they're not 'bad'. But they don't really address any major problems of the game, they're just some eye candy to keep (some of) us entertained for a while longer.

I think we should really avoid talking about those problems as a generic term. It's hard to know what people are talking about when there's so many different (as in varied) complaints out there.

By major problems you mean the "itemization"? Or do you mean "end-game content"? Or maybe "autostats"? Or all of the above?

I'm saying that because just saying "problems" doesn't really address the fact that different people like different things in the game. I personally like autostats, but I don't like the way resistances were handled (although the system is quite "d2-like", very traditional, so maybe that's why they didn't change).

So just saying "major problems" makes it really hard to understand why you're not happy with the patch (and that's a problem that a ton of people on the official forums have). That makes it insanely hard for Blizzard to filter the useful information in each person's feedback.

Also, any change (and I mean any change at all) that's aimed at adressing major problems of the game would cause MAJOR controversies/backlash/outrage. Changes to existing gear to rebalance some mechanics (crit dmg, crit chance)? Outrage from those who are using those mechanics.... Changes to dropped item quality? Outrage from people who already have good stuff (so their stuff becomes less valuable)...

Core game mechanics will not be changed (resists, autostats, the existence of the AH, current item stats). It's not what I want, but it's the raw truth.

Yeah, go figure. It actually amazes me that Blizzard doesn't actually go the "screw you all" way like a lot of developers do to high-profile games: CoD (mostly Infinity Ward), Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, Borderlands (1 and 2), Torchlight 2 (which had major feedback and requests on forums and yet 90% of its patches are hotfixes) - all of which barely have changes/patches/fixes to stuff that the developers messed up).

I agree that some people just rant without being constructive in any way and I also understand that each one would actually design the game differently if we were in charge, as everything in life be able to please all is an impossible task.

However I don't feel my post was in any way without reason, I just wanted to chime in, with things I feel are good and the ones that I think then can be improved.

Oh, don't worry BatuKMan, my post wasn't directed at any of you. Your post was actually spot on and I agree with it entirely.

That's the kind of good feedback and criticism that everyone should give. It would make Blizzard's job a lot easier if everyone was like you.

My posts were meant to encourage people who talk about D3's problems as if they're an obvious whole (as maka kind of did on his post, and as tons of players do on the official forums) to be more specific about what they consider to be bad. It's hard to tell why these people didn't like the patch, and which problems they wanted to see addressed (and how).

My posts were meant to encourage people who talk about D3's problems as if they're an obvious whole (as maka kind of did on his post, and as tons of players do on the official forums) to be more specific about what they consider to be bad. It's hard to tell why these people didn't like the patch, and which problems they wanted to see addressed (and how).

The thing is, no matter what you think D3's problems are, I don't think they've been addressed in this patch.
Like you said: itemisation? Was not addressed. End-game content? Was not addressed. Well, sure, you have that handful of new crafting recipes, but considering the randomness of the hellfire ring, I doubt they'll be something I'll pour hours into.

Bottom line is, I've written extensively on what I think the problems with this game are, the things that make me not want to play. I don't think I have to repeat myself on every post I make.
However, and regardless of what you think the game's problems are, it's pretty certain that this patch did not address/fix it. UNLESS you thought the game was perfect, and the only thing missing was duelling. In that case, congrats on finally getting the game to your liking.

My posts were meant to encourage people who talk about D3's problems as if they're an obvious whole (as maka kind of did on his post, and as tons of players do on the official forums) to be more specific about what they consider to be bad. It's hard to tell why these people didn't like the patch, and which problems they wanted to see addressed (and how).

The thing is, no matter what you think D3's problems are, I don't think they've been addressed in this patch.
Like you said: itemisation? Was not addressed. End-game content? Was not addressed. Well, sure, you have that handful of new crafting recipes, but considering the randomness of the hellfire ring, I doubt they'll be something I'll pour hours into.

Bottom line is, I've written extensively on what I think the problems with this game are, the things that make me not want to play. I don't think I have to repeat myself on every post I make.
However, and regardless of what you think the game's problems are, it's pretty certain that this patch did not address/fix it. UNLESS you thought the game was perfect, and the only thing missing was duelling. In that case, congrats on finally getting the game to your liking.

You make a good, compelling, point. I am in the boat with you that PvP doesn't do anything for me. If they never added it to D3 I could care less. But, I think we both know that the lack of PvP in D3 has caused major issues and post after post of unrelenting nerdrage on the subject. To that extent I welcome any change that gets those posters to STFU, frankly.

I think we both know that itemization is definitely something that Blizzard is going to look into - the stuff didn't pan out properly in D3 because, looking at weapons as a microcosm, anything weapon that doesn't have very high damage, a socket, and near-perfect CritDmg is generally not very valuable. That's an issue. Even LoD had some itemization-related changes, namely gems being BOOOOOOORRRRIIIING and the result was the introduction of jewels.

Anyway, my parting shot is that I think it's probably not in anyone's interest to get too caught up in the order of the fixes, just that the fixes are coming and coming steadily. Because, honestly, that's a lot of the bitching that I see about 1.0.7 over the past 24 hours... "It's not fixing what I think it should be fixing."

And I certainly understand the frustration, but not all problems are solvable on the same timetable. We'll get ours too. I am hoping they put in more affixes for monsters, honestly. I'm getting a bit bored of the same damned affixes.

Expressions like Itemization and End-game are so infinitely generic that it's hard to know what specific people want to change.

While a lot of people want to have "more interesting affixes", many will complain if they make any changes that devalues current gear (as lots of people did when they changed amulets and rings, and that was a very simple/small change, imagine big stuff like changing the all resist mechanics, or changing how stats work).

As far as end-game game goes, Diablo has always been about the item hunt. Unless you have the absolute perfect items on every slot for every character, you're probably not even at the end-game. I know I'm not. And I'm absolutely positive a lot of people complaining about lack of "end-game" also aren't,

What they really want is end-game quests... infinite dungeons... bosses... Firstly, this isn't a subscription MMO, so whoever got this expecting new content every few weeks are the ones delusional. Secondly, these are all artificial challenges, so you think you're doing something different, while you're actually just hunting for items (the original end-game).

You see the post above me, this guy wants more monster affixes. That's a concrete suggestion. That's something that can be done, pretty easily. And would add depth to an already dynamic combat. Generic complaints serve absolutely no purpose except to bash on the current state of the game.

Expressions like Itemization and End-game are so infinitely generic that it's hard to know what specific people want to change.

While a lot of people want to have "more interesting affixes", many will complain if they make any changes that devalues current gear (as lots of people did when they changed amulets and rings, and that was a very simple/small change, imagine big stuff like changing the all resist mechanics, or changing how stats work).

As far as end-game game goes, Diablo has always been about the item hunt. Unless you have the absolute perfect items on every slot for every character, you're probably not even at the end-game. I know I'm not. And I'm absolutely positive a lot of people complaining about lack of "end-game" also aren't,

What they really want is end-game quests... infinite dungeons... bosses... Firstly, this isn't a subscription MMO, so whoever got this expecting new content every few weeks are the ones delusional. Secondly, these are all artificial challenges, so you think you're doing something different, while you're actually just hunting for items (the original end-game).

You see the post above me, this guy wants more monster affixes. That's a concrete suggestion. That's something that can be done, pretty easily. And would add depth to an already dynamic combat. Generic complaints serve absolutely no purpose except to bash on the current state of the game.

Since people are still buying off the RMAH and have since it was launched, there's a gray area between not being a subscription MMO and not generating any profit past launch. Furthermore, if people want to make the argument that this title is "not diablo 2, so it shouldn't be held to it's standards", then we are also allowed to hold the title to a higher degree of what the content looks like. We don't have to stop at the item hunt.

With that said, we can offer a number of suggestions but there's no point brainstorming the multitude of ideas when A) other games have addressed them, and they won't be implemented

Endgame is composed of a few main parts for me:

Item hunting in order to increase character powerfor a greater purpose. Some ideas for that subcategories of that purpose are as follows: Making new characters and builds, Ranked PvP and PvE Ladder, a tier of very high optional difficulty and/or sidequests that yield rewards which other modes do not (original design of inferno), a possible infinite dungeon with achievements, and we can build from there. I currently love Path of Exile's league system:

I would also personally that the game needs a flourishing economy where there is a need to reroll characters and trade items outside of gaining "400k dps to faceroll mp10 for no real reason"
Character strength without reason is pointless. Creating a strong economy in a video game is extremely easy, but won't be done until at least an expansion (if ever). This supposed economy would be bolstered by stat allocation and skill trees.

These are the standard ideas that float around commonly, but there are many others out there. I wouldn't even be opposed to an MMO style of changing stuff like blacksmithing and jewelcrafting to be player professions.

Edit: One more idea I really wanted in d3 for a long time is "guilds/clans", I'm not sure what purpose they'd have yet to serve, but maybe some sort of a competition between guilds/clans, which would encourage co-op play.

Making new characters and builds is something people can do right now. Almost nobody does that, since everyone just want to be as powerful and as effective as possible, even though all these people complained a ton about not having customization (yeah, right, all they want is to customize their characters - that's why they're all using WW Barbs).

I wasn't very fond of the Ladder idea in the past, but I see why some would like playing in that particular mode. I like the idea today. They could always implement that, and if it's not succesful remove it afterwards. And the current characters could all just be labeled as "non-ladder".

I have a few doubts though. In a "Ladder" system, would we have access to the AH? Would it be a different AH than the non-ladder? What's the ideal reset timer for a ladder nowadays? 1-2 months (since that's how long the hardcore players probably need to finish everything)? What's the final challenge? Making a Hellfire Ring?

Leagues are a neat idea, and I'd probably like them a lot. But, from a developer point of view, for the masses (and I'm included in that), it's an artificial end-game, an artificial competitive environment, because you can't really compete with guys like KingKongor or Alkaizer or Kripparian, who have 8-14 hours/day to pour into the game. Any form of competition in an ARPG would be very bland and based on time invested. I can be competitive in CoD or DotA 2 without playing 10 hours a day, but on D3 (or WoW for that matter) that's just impossible.

@Zero(ps): you're still not getting it. It doesn't matter what I want.
You can have 1000 people that want 1000 different things for so-called "end-game" (and that are not satisfied with the current end-game), and what this patch does for 'end-game' doesn't please 999 people out of those 1000. The one guy who's happy is the one that only wanted needed duelling, and nothing else.

At the same time, take 1000 people that are displeased with the itemisation in D3, for 1000 different reasons. Once again, probably none of those 1000 will be happy with what this patch does for itemisation, because it does nothing. Seriously, one more gem rank? Tens of millions of gold for 10% extra crit dmg or some main stat? Please.

It's just.....really weird. Some of the changes are really out of touch with reality, while other things that glaringly need fixing (and I don't even mean the hard ones, just some quick and easy fixes) don't even get mentioned - I'm looking at you, weapon effect of topazes and helm effect of emeralds. I'm also looking at you, useless lvl 60, 61 and 62 legendary weapons. Another example? It took them, what?, eight months to realise that being able to progress between acts without having to exit game is a good thing. No shit.

And let's not even mention the aberration that is bnet 3.0 as it applies to D3.

i really agree with what Maka is saying, it does get hard to keep making a logical systematic and specific critiques when the general subject is not changing. So while using terms like "Itemization" does not provide any specific information it refers to all the problems which people have had in this area.

This patch clearly does very little to address ANY of the itemization problems at all, its not a systematic change its a just a few more band-aids. For example a systematic and new change which could be made to crafting would include a genuine legendary item sink. Its not enough to create a few recipes which utilise brimstone because the items made with brimstone are still durable you need a a crafting recipe which creates an expendable non-durable so that items are actually completely destroyed.

basically you need something that provides an incentive to destroy your items rather than AH them all the time.

The itemization In diablo 3 is just not well planned and systematically implemented. Which is ridiculous because the game lives and dies on the items.

as I've pointed out before look at the bare basic of the item system in D2.

3 difficulties. 3 item tiers. I tier for each difficulty.

Difficulties -------- Item level

Normal ------------ Normal

Nightmare -------- Exceptional

Hell ----------------- Elite

what does Diablo 3 have that compares with this simple elegant system that allowed for fine tuned progression from one difficulty to the next, made the item hunt relevant in all difficulties, made gearing alts possible and exciting when using your main and so on. the item levels in diablo 3 are not well thought through at all there's no point in farming until you reach Inferno and even then it takes so long to get rewards its ridiculous.

On top of this simple system we then had another system of item qualities which were relevant.

In diablo 3 these items have no relevance at all because there's nothing being done with these item qualities.

This is all before you even start talking about prefixes or suffixes. or gear slots.

What does Diablo 3 have that compares to this systematic item system? Forget about it.

Now Zero you can say that this second critique has no purpose because they will not change the fundamental item system which is probably true. But will anything less yield a satisfying pool of items for those who played with arguably the best system of items ever created, i don't think it will. But i really hope by the possibility of showing the developers where they have failed by not recognising the GREATEST strengths of the Diablo franchise the may be able to salvage the mockery of an item system they have created into something that is rewarding and enjoyable.

Diablo 3 has some strengths the combat is far more interesting and tactical than Diablo 2 was but that is nothing if the "item problem" as it should aptly be called is not resolved.

Leagues are a neat idea, and I'd probably like them a lot. But, from a developer point of view, for the masses (and I'm included in that), it's an artificial end-game, an artificial competitive environment, because you can't really compete with guys like KingKongor or Alkaizer or Kripparian, who have 8-14 hours/day to pour into the game. Any form of competition in an ARPG would be very bland and based on time invested. I can be competitive in CoD or DotA 2 without playing 10 hours a day, but on D3 (or WoW for that matter) that's just impossible.

It's not a socialism world though, if they have the time to put in and they do the best, then they win. In a game with millions of players its not like the rank would be "top 10", but more like "top 1,000".

BTW All games are 'artificial', so I have no idea what people mean when they apply that to a video game.